


Of the Strength of Hobbits

by NebulousMistress



Series: The Red Book [11]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms
Genre: Episode: s04e09 Miller's Crossing, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-08-05 12:10:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16367546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousMistress/pseuds/NebulousMistress
Summary: Jeannie Miller has been kidnapped.Family is a choice in the Pegasus galaxy. One can choose to leave behind those who belittle and insult and hurt. Rodney could have chosen to stay out of it, to leave Jeannie behind.





	1. Scrinia

Rodney McKay heard the soft beeping on the edge of consciousness, a chirp like a young daemanatis fresh from the egg. No, not a daemanatis, a much smaller bird. A… sparrow? It had been so long since he heard a sparrow he’d forgotten what they looked like. Like a tiny bird but no bony tail? A triangular beak for cracking seeds, or was that a finch? Or was there a difference? Darwin would know…

Rodney rolled over and tried to get back to sleep. Sleep felt and smelled so good right about now. There was softness and warmth and the smell of dried reeds and a set of hands against his shoulders.

“Rodney, wake up.”

Rodney groaned and pretended to be asleep.

“Rodney, Atlantis calls for you.”

Rodney growled and opened his eyes.

The light of stars twinkled in the blackness of the sky through the glass-less window. Papyrus wall hangings covered the stone and clay brick walls of the bedroom, of the house his family lived in. Benito lay snoring in his basket-crib in the corner. Elena pretended to be asleep better than he did, the faint smile on her face betraying her awareness. Adrian, on the other hand, sat up with the bedcovers down around his waist, the Lantean radio held to his ear. He looked worried, like he was privy to news that did not sit well with him.

“What is it?” Rodney asked. “Gimme.” He made a grabby hand for the radio, snatching it away as Adrian offered it. “McKay here,” he said.

“Dr. McKay, you’re needed on Earth.”

Colonel Carter’s voice was tinny through the speaker of the radio, across the miles of open desert to the stargate and the wormhole between gates normally light years apart. Yet still Rodney thought he could sense a hard note of desperation? Worry? Something was wrong. “What is it?” Rodney asked.

Elena stopped pretending to be asleep at the tone of Rodney’s voice and sat up. She looked to Adrian but he shook his head for silence.

“Rodney, your sister’s been kidnapped.”

Rodney went still, his hair standing on end. “What?” he whispered.

“Jeannie’s been kidnapped,” Carter said. “Smash-and-grab from her own bedroom. Kaleb and Madison are okay, mostly just shook up, but there’s been no contact from the kidnappers yet. Rodney, we have every reason to believe she was kidnapped due to her work with us.”

Kidnapped.

Because of him.

Rodney felt his whole body grow cold.

“I understand if you don’t want to be involved--”

Rodney cut her off. “She’s my sister,” he said, voice deadly quiet. Then it changed, a furious hiss beneath his words. “ _ She’s my SISTER _ . Somebody kidnapped my sister, Sam.”

“We have the best people with the NID on this, Rodney. They’ll find her.”

“No,” Rodney said. “ **I’ll** find her.” He disconnected the radio before curling it into his ear.

He had to get back to Atlantis.

Adrian was out of bed before Rodney could even ask. “I’ll have my fastest bird ready for you before you’re finished dressing." Adrian didn’t even grab clothes as he left the room and the house, heading down to the stables.

Rodney sat on the bed. He took a deep breath, trying to stave off the shaking he could feel rising up in him. This stuff wasn’t supposed to happen, especially not to Jeannie. She didn’t even  **do** anything, just answered a few emails on Replicator code and made snide comments about how he didn’t have a girlfriend yet. Rodney snorted. If only she knew…

And he might now never get the chance to tell her.

Elena’s hand on his shoulder made him jump. “You should go save your sister,” she said.

Rodney nodded. He hugged her close, inhaling that great tits smell that seemed to only get better and better over time. But he had to let go, to leave behind the family he’d chosen to go save the family who resented him. He kissed her, long and slow, then left her alone in bed.

He lifted Benito out of his basket-crib, ignoring the whining protest. "Da?" Benito mumbled sleepily.

"Hey there," Rodney said. "I have to go again. Be good for your momma and pater, okay?"

"Pata..." Benito snuggled into Rodney's chest and tried to fall back asleep.

Rodney held his son and took a deep calming breath. He had to leave. Like every other time. No different than any other time he had to go back to Atlantis. If he said it enough he might believe it. He kissed Benito's head and laid him back in the basket-crib. "I love you," he said. And then he turned away.

He got dressed and stepped into the desert night. Stars shone overhead, the blobs and veils of the irregular galaxy around them lighting the night like a crescent moon. Adrian fastened the last of the saddle straps on the daemanatis, the large red riding bird with the bony tail. He draped the hood over the bird’s face and strapped the bridle around its leather-wrapped beak. The reins draped from the bridle like a turkey’s wattle. 

The line of the river snaked through the darkness. Stone amphitheatres dropped like pits in the red stone of the scrublands. Beyond that the slow rise of the shield volcano dominated for a hundred miles. The gate was blocked from view by the stone circle around it, tall boulders dragged in to make entry by flight impossible.

This world Scrinia had accepted him without question. He’d found one night here, one night that expanded into so much more. A wife, a husband, a child. There was talk of another when young Benito had grown enough to run on his own.

Now Earth, the world that rejected him so hard he accepted a position on the initial Atlantis Expedition knowing it was a one way trip, that world was dragging him back by threatening the sister he left behind with a ‘good riddance’. The sister that circumstance had shoved back into his life. That he realized he would miss if she went missing permanently.

Adrian wrapped his arms around Rodney and his musings. Rodney fell from his thoughts as he realized Adrian had saddled the bird while nude. Rodney blushed as Adrian nuzzled his neck and kissed him there. “Valar speed your way,” Adrian said.

Rodney drew Adrian in for a kiss. “Thank you,” he said. “For everything.” He pulled away and mounted the bird where it sat on the ground like it was brooding a rock. He took the stick for guiding the bird and slapped the base of its long bony tail. The bird squawked and stood, taking off in a run.

The gate was miles away yet.


	2. A Kidnapping in Two Acts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two hostages. Two siblings. Two hobbits.
> 
> Written from two points of view.

This was a nightmare.

There was no other word for it. The SGC had prepared him for what might happen, for the extreme measures some factions on Earth might take to gain his knowledge and genius. But knowing one might be kidnapped was an entirely different experience than actually being kidnapped.

Worse, he wasn’t alone.

Rodney sat looking at the computer screen before him. Replicator code blinked mockingly at him, code altered in ways he’d begun but others had finished. Devlin Medical Technologies was a company subcontracted by the SGC to handle all manner of little things. Apparently those ‘little things’ involved nanites, something Rodney was going to have a long, long rant about when this was over. Those ‘little things’ allowed the company president Henry Wallace to put the pieces together and somehow divine the source of all these ‘newly-declassified experiments’ that DMT was allowed to bring to market.

“They’re not communicating.”

Rodney looked up from his own work, or lack thereof. He had Wallace’s ‘word’ that they would be set free once the nanites worked but what use was the word of a kidnapper? SGC training was explicit: once kidnapped you have one job and one job only, escape.

“That’s what’s causing all the problems - they’re going after some cells redundantly, they’re ignoring others. They’ve caused at least three partially-clogged arteries. Something in their coding is stopping them from understanding each other.”

Jeannie never had SGC training on anything, much less the kidnapping courses. She took Wallace at his word, she trusted him to let them go once they’d danced to his little tune and perfected the nanites. Rodney knew better than that. Even without the SGC, he’d known too many Genii to ever take a kidnapper at their word. Unless, of course, that ‘word’ included methods of execution.

Jeannie looked up from her own computer. “Are you even listening to me?” she demanded.

“Nah, you lost me at ‘nanites’,” Rodney admitted offhandedly. He moved the open window of Replicator code from the bulk of his desktop, excellent camouflage in case of prying siblings and armed guards. His real work lay behind.

Jeannie snapped her fingers at him, something their own mother did to try to get their attention, something he still did to his own scientists. From this end it felt oddly like she was trying to catch the attention of an untrained dog. “Hey, idiot, we need to solve this coding problem.”

“No, what we need to do is get the hell out of here.”

“I know, by solving the coding problem.”

Rodney sighed and shook his head. He didn’t have the time to give Jeannie a crash course in just how fucked they both were. “So young and so naive.”

“You got a better idea?” Jeannie demanded.

“Yes,” Rodney snapped. He took a breath before launching into his explanation. “Look, they gave these computers network access so we could monitor Sharon in real-time, right? Which means _I_ can also hack into the security mainframe.”

“Wait, what about Sharon?”

“What about _us_?”

“We can _do_ this, Mer,” Jeannie pleaded. “We can help this girl!”

“And then what? He’s just gonna let us go? What, you think he’s just gonna give up his life, lose his company, get carted off to prison, you think he’ll be fine with that?”

“He’s desperate, I think any parent would understand.”

Rodney sneered. That was a lie, he didn’t understand at all. “Oh, you think,” he said, voice going terribly even. “All right, let’s just for a second imagine that we live in this magical land of unicorns and wizards and kind-hearted kidnappers who you can take at their word. Let’s assume that he lets us go if we save her. But what if we fail?”

Jeannie felt her stomach knot. She looked at the computer where her own code sat blinking and unfinished, mocking her.

“What if she dies?” Rodney continued. “How happy d’you think he’ll be then? You think he’ll let us just waltz out the door with an ‘aw shucks, well better luck next time tiger’ attitude?”

Jeannie looked at the other monitor she had, where the dying girl Sharon lay in real time. She looked back to the Replicator code mocking her with its complexity.

“We need to get out of here,” Rodney said. “I’ve been working on a code to unlock all the keypad doors. I memorized the building’s layout from this computer here.”

Jeannie took a deep breath. She knew she was going to regret this. “Okay,” she said.

Rodney activated the program. For a long moment nothing happened. Then the door buzzed and unlatched. The door fell ajar, swinging free on its hinges.

“Huh.” Jeannie looked at the door in surprise. She hadn’t expected this little escape attempt to go anywhere. Then she saw movement out of the corner of her eye and “Mer! Stop it!”

“Oh bite me,” Rodney said. He continued taking his shoes off. “Pretend all you like but I’d rather not get caught. In fact, take your shoes off.”

“Absolutely not, and now is not the time,” Jeannie hissed.

“Fine, but if we get caught because you decided you’d rather make noise I will hurt you myself,” Rodney said. Shoes and socks discarded, he ignored the disgusted look his sister gave him. At least, he tried to ignore it, tried to tamp it down below better memories of people who didn’t consider him subhuman for having a decidedly non-human characteristic.

Tried to ignore the loud tapping of her shoes on the linoleum floor behind him as he followed the twisting corridors of this labyrinthine compound. They were underground, had to be, it felt like it. He couldn’t quite sense which direction North was, maybe they were in the middle of a city or the building was shielded in some way. Or maybe he hadn’t been on Earth in over a year and the single north magnetic pole didn’t feel natural anymore. Either way the stairwell wasn’t where the map said it would be.

Then Jeannie grew more interested in harping on him, loudly, instead of staying quiet and escaping.

It was almost a relief when the alarm sounded, if only because it covered the sounds she made. Then he came to his senses when the guards rounded the corner.

Jeannie made a squeaking sound when the Taser hit.

Then Rodney turned to run and everything stopped.

*****

Rodney sat sullenly at his computer. This time the lines of Replicator code weren’t a decoy.

Jeannie should have left her shoes behind. Sure she spent her entire life pretending to be normal but so had he, mostly, until about a year ago when he finally decided to stop hiding. If she’d left her shoes behind they could have been quieter, they might have snuck out even with the alarm going. There had to be some maintenance floors, especially if this were an underground facility. Air ducts were out of the question, not as tall as they were. And as much as Jeannie dieted she wasn’t particularly skinny either.

But that was over. That possibility was gone. No network access, a guard outside their door, a guard inside their door. A guard Rodney worked resolutely hard to ignore.

They had to get the nanite code right. Now there was reason. Wallace had injected Jeannie with a dose of nanites and Rodney could see the effects from here. Nanites wreaked havoc on her system, leaving her skin pale and feverish, she moved like she ached all over. Which to be fair, she likely did. It looked like a bad flu from here, Rodney didn’t want to think of what it must feel like.

“You were right,” Rodney admitted. “They’re not communicating. They’re not doing a _lot_ of things they should be doing, in fact.”

She made a noise at him but seemed content to pretend to not hear him.

“See, the thing is, even though DMT manufactured their own nanites, their coding, their programming - most of it’s lifted directly from the Replicators. And the thing is, much as I hate to admit it, we’re only just beginning to understand that coding. The Wraith we’ve been working with has helped us make leaps and bounds but--”

“Wait, wait,” Jeannie said, breaking her own illusion. “You’ve been working with a _Wraith_?”

“Yeah, it’s a long story,” Rodney said. But he didn’t elaborate, instead moving to her console. “What I’m trying to say is, this program that we’re pushing on it is designed to restrain them very specifically to make sure they don’t get out of control. So much so that…”

“...that they’re completely ineffective,” Jeannie realized.

“It’s like we tied their hands behind their backs,” Rodney agreed.

“So we have to cut them loose.”

“Exactly. These nanites can’t replicate. Technically, by unleashing them we might make all our little problems go away.”

“That shouldn’t be too complex, altering two, maybe three thousand lines of code!”

“Yeah,” Rodney said, his enthusiasm missing. “It’s a cinch.”

“Yeah!” Jeannie cracked her knuckles and got to work, typing away at those few thousand lines of code.

Rodney let her throw herself into their work. It was their only chance now that escape was no longer an option.

* * *

This was a nightmare.

Meredith paced the room in eerie silence. He wouldn’t wear shoes, not since they’d been recaptured, and the silence was starting to get unnerving.

Jeannie sat scowling at her computer, refusing to look at her brother. He’d let himself go, that was the only explanation. When normal people let themselves go they got fat, they grew beards, they got too many cats and developed a hoarding problem.

But Jeannie and Meredith, they weren’t normal. Their dad made sure they knew that early on. As long as she could remember her parents shaved her feet, threatening to wax them if she squirmed or complained. It was just something she had to do, they said. Meredith shaved his feet like a good little boy, he pretended to be human and got along just fine, that’s why she had to. Maybe if she were good her parents might get her electrolysis for her birthday like she asked every year in secondary school.

They hadn’t and she’d skimmed money from her scholarships to pay for it herself her freshman year of college.

She was normal after that, or at least she could pretend. She still had to diet fiercely to keep from gaining weight. Becoming vegan made it easy to stay thin, easy to avoid food when it was all so unappetizing. Even when Madison was born she could pretend. She would pretend. She was normal like everyone assumed.

Yet here stood Meredith and his refusal to hide disgusted her. His belly didn’t sit right, too high and fit, not like any fat guy she’d expect to see on Earth. His feet were hairy, nearly furry with thick curly hair that she knew crept up his legs like fuzzy socks. The soles of those feet could be conditioned to handle rocks, thorns, even nails or glass if necessary. If she were to get facetious about it she might be surprised he hadn’t shrunk.

She’d seen the old pictures. Dad’s family had been marrying into height for generations.

“It’s been hours,” Meredith complained.

“Something like that,” Jeannie allowed, voice sharp.

“So, what, no updates?” Mer demanded. “I mean, I know we’re hostages and all but come on! It took me, like, ten seconds to upload the program to you. What’s taking _them_ so much time?”

Jeannie sighed. She’d been trying not to think about this or their situation but if Meredith was going to insist… “It’s gonna take a while to figure out if our coding patch actually makes the nanites fight the cancer.”

“When we activated them in Weir she was healed almost instantly.”

Jeannie doubted that. Time and stress must be messing with the memory. Or he was just exaggerating again. “That time the Replicator nanites actually _replaced_ her damaged cells. Our guys have to _repair_ them.”

“But still! They should have seen massive changes in her condition by now. I mean, why aren’t they telling us anything?”

“Sit down!” Jeannie snapped. “You’re driving me crazy.” This is what she was trying not to imagine, the ‘what if this doesn’t work’.

Meredith sat down, arms folded as he pouted. Oh hell, he even kicked his feet like a petulant hobbit. He couldn’t be any more obvious if he were 3 feet tall. Was this some sort of order from the SGC? The whole Genii believing _The Silmarillion_ was still ridiculous but if that were true…

No, couldn’t be. It was too dumb.

She looked at the computer and its blank useless screen. Their systems were shut down once the programming was complete, probably to avoid another escape attempt. They didn’t even have a deck of cards to occupy them. Jeannie wracked her brain for something to talk about. Wait, Meredith mentioned a girl once. What was her name, Kathy? Katie? It started with a ‘k’...

“So, how are you and that Katie girl?” she asked.

“Wait, what?”

“You heard me.”

“Okay, where did _that_ come from?!”

At least he didn’t correct her on the name. She must have gotten it close enough. “I’m trying to take my mind off the fact that I have tiny robots running through my veins because _you_ needed help with your homework. So, are you gonna marry her?”

Meredith looked like he wasn’t sure how to answer. “We went on two dates,” he said. “Two years ago.”

“So you blew it then.”

“For our second date I was possessed by the consciousness of one of the marines who kept using my body to flirt with my male best friend while I was on a date with Katie,” Meredith described with distinct bluntness. “I did not agree to anything that happened that night. Things did not go well.”

Jeannie didn’t know whether to believe that or not. On one hand, exaggerations. On the other hand, that was weirder than any other excuse he’d ever used. She vowed to decide later. “So you blew it then,” she said.

He glared at her then looked away. She recognized that hurt anywhere, he was making something up and angry that she didn’t believe him. “What, do you really think you’re gonna find someone better?”

“Wait, what?”

“‘Cause you know you’re not.”

“Hang on there--”

Jeannie cut him off. “The fact that you found a nice girl who was willing to put up with all your many little flaws, even for two dates, is a miracle.”

“See here--”

“Plus, physically you’re, you let yourself go, Meredith. God damn it, you look like a giant hobbit! You are exactly what Mom and Dad warned us about. Please tell me the SGC ordered this or something because the idea that you’d willingly allow this! How haven’t they found a replacement for you? Someone who looks human? The Genii looked more human than you do!”

Meredith slammed a hand down on a lab bench. “Okay, that is **it** !” he shouted. “I put up with this horseshit from my own mind for **years** I do not need it from you. You have no idea what it’s like out there and what it all means and to be honest I hope you never do because you don’t **deserve** it!”

The door opened.

“You don’t _deserve_ what I’ve seen, what I’ve done, what I’ve accomplished out there. You don’t have the right to make me feel bad about the best things in my life. I should have--”

Jeannie waved him to silence, arms flailing wide in true McKay fashion. At his irritated “WHAT?!” she pointed to the guard at the door.

“Come with me,” the guard said.

Meredith glared at Jeannie and followed, silent footfalls making the guard visibly uncomfortable.

Jeannie shook off Meredith’s words. If he wanted to ruin his life that was his right but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try to drag him into some sense of normality. He’d need it when the Atlantis expedition ended and they all came back to Earth for good.

*****

The taste of champagne lingered on her lips, sour and mocking. She didn’t know what to do.

It should have worked. The nanites were supposed to deal with the cancer then shut down. Instead the girl Sharon lay on the hospital bed, her heart stopped without warning. Then it started again, without warning. But there was nothing behind her eyes, no mind in her head. A blank brain.

Meredith tapped away at the computer in front of him, trying to find the cause. Or maybe he was trying to hatch another plan for escape. Jeannie glanced over at their kidnapper, this Henry Wallace.

She could only imagine what he was going through and even that glimpse terrified her. If anything happened to Madison…

The nanites were their fault. She and Meredith reprogrammed them. That made this failure their fault.

“The nanites are still active,” Mer realized.

“Once they’ve beaten the cancer they’re supposed to shut down,” Jeannie said. It was a token protest and she knew it.

“It’s never been tested in a live subject and it’s only worked sporadically in simulations!” Meredith turned on the man who held them captive and scowled. “Look, I _told_ you - this programming is nowhere near ready to implement!”

“Wait…” Wallace looked at Meredith then out toward the room where his daughter’s unthinking body lay. “You’re saying the nanites brought her back to life?”

“It’s the only viable explanation,” Mer said.

“Then why did she die in the first place?” Wallace demanded. “Shouldn’t they have kept her alive?!”

Jeannie glared at her brother. He was just making this worse. “That’s a good point.”

Meredith didn’t notice her unspoken warning at all, instead lost in his own ideas. “Whoa-whoa-whoa-wait, wait. The doctor said her heart just stopped, right, seemingly out of nowhere?” He didn’t wait for the affirmative. “Does Sharon have any heart problems unrelated to the cancer?”

“Yes,” Wallace said. “She has a mitral regurgitation problem, a heart murmur. But it’s never been…”

Meredith turned his triumphant smirk on Jeannie. “You don’t think…”

“We broadened the parameters,” Jeannie admitted. It wasn’t just admitting to her brother he was right, not anymore. It was admitting her own fears, that they killed this little girl. “They weren’t _just_ programmed to cure the cancer.”

“Once they were done with the leukemia they moved onto the heart murmur and the easiest way to fix that…”

“...is shut it down while they repaired it,” Wallace said, finishing Meredith’s thought.

Jeannie felt dread grow like a ball of ice in her stomach. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said. That made it her fault, their fault. Meredith's fault. He was the elder brother, he sent her the code, that made it his fault. “Shutting down the heart and starving the brain of oxygen would cause severe brain damage.”

“Damage they could technically fix,” Mer said.

“They could repair the tissue, yes, but the patient would lose their memories, their language skills, any sense of self.”

“They don’t care about that,” Mer insisted. “Look, they were designed to fix the body of all physical maladies. I mean, preserving a sense of self isn’t one of their directives.”

“So she’s gonna be stuck in this vegetative state?” Wallace demanded.

“Technically, her brain is perfectly healthy,” Mer said with not a tone in his voice saying he understood the emotional implications of his words. “It’s like she’s been reset to zero, so to speak.”

The ice spread from her belly to her limbs and Jeannie sincerely hoped it wasn’t what she feared it might be. “Meredith,” she said. “What about me? I don’t have any cancer. They’ll look around and go straight for…”

Meredith looked over in dawning horror. “...your epilepsy.”

The icy feeling turned to an itchiness that she instinctively disliked. It felt like the portent to something horrible. “I don’t wanna be shut down for repairs,” she whispered.

“Okay, okay. First thing we’ve gotta do is make sure--”

He never finished his sentence, not as the sounds of gunfire approached, the whine of energy weapons broke secrecy, the door slammed open.

They were being rescued.

But rescue was too late. She was already exposed.

The nightmare wouldn't end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dialogue from the episode lifted from the [Gateworld](https://www.gateworld.net/atlantis/s4/millers-crossing/transcript/) transcripts. Many thanks.


	3. The Fury of Elves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elves often do foolish things to protect their hobbits. Tracks orcs for a hundred miles in a three day sprint, enter Moria, charge the Black Gate with a tiny pittance of army...
> 
> ...convince a stranger to feed himself to a Wraith.

John Sheppard ignored the odd stares. He knew Atlantis had changed him, could feel it in every step and movement. The world moved in slow motion when he willed it, his mind and body faster and sharper than the human norms he once aspired to. Once he could only feel like this in the air, flying alone with no one to question or wonder. No gravity to hold him down, only open air and no enforced sense of ‘up’.

Now he couldn’t stop feeling like it. It was amazing, glorious, why had he fought against this once?

Oh. Right. He knew why. He knew better than to let himself feel like this around people who didn’t already know.

But Atlantis knew. The SGC knew. By this time half of Congress probably knew.

Sheppard stood in front of the interrogation room where Henry Wallace sat under guard, awaiting judgment. Wallace would know. Sheppard wouldn’t have to say a thing, but by the time he was finished Henry Wallace would know beyond any doubt just what he’d angered.

He opened the door and stepped inside. With a glance and a gesture he gave his orders and the guards left.

“My daughter,” Wallace said. “How is she?”

Wallace sat facing the wall, hands on the interrogation table, his back to Sheppard. He didn’t get up, he didn’t move, he didn’t make for the door. A man accepting of his fate. Good. That made what Sheppard had to do easier. “I’m sorry,” he said.

That got Wallace’s attention. He turned to face Sheppard.

“She’s dead,” Sheppard said. He watched Wallace carefully, saw the man’s face fall into absolute grief, the realization that he’d risked everything and lost it all for nothing. Sheppard approached the table and took a seat on the side opposite Wallace. “We’re going over the data,” he said. “We don’t understand what happened. I’m sorry.”

“And Jeannie?” Wallace asked.

“She’s not gonna make it,” Sheppard said. It was true, if the nanites blanked out and shut down in the middle of a repair like they did in Sharon then Jeannie wouldn’t make it. “We brought in a... specialist from the Pegasus galaxy - part of an enemy race called the ‘Wraith’. Somehow McKay has convinced him to create a program to shut down the nanites in Jeannie’s body.”

“And?”

“He was close, real close,” Sheppard admitted. “But he hasn’t fed in weeks so he collapsed. He’s too weak to finish the coding modifications.”

“I… don’t understand,” Wallace said. “If it means saving her life why not just feed him?”

“He feeds on humans,” Sheppard said. He paused to let it sink in. “On their life force.”

Wallace swallowed and looked down at his hands. “I… see.” He took a deep breath. “So Jeannie will…”

“She’s gonna die, just like Sharon.”

“I’m so sorry,” Wallace whispered.

“I’m sure you are,” Sheppard said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a photograph, a man and a little girl both smiling at the camera. Kaleb and Madison. He dropped the photo on the table in front of Wallace. “This is Kaleb, her husband, and Madison, her little daughter.”

Wallace picked up the photograph and had to wipe the tears from his eyes. “I never meant for any of this to happen,” he said.

“I know you didn’t,” Sheppard said. It almost sounded convincing. “But it did. Now McKay’s blaming himself but I know better. You know better.”

Wallace looked at his hands and sighed.

Sheppard pulled a smooth glass device from his pocket. He unfolded it, the crystal as pliant as paper. “McKay's volunteered to feed the Wraith,” he said. “She’s his sister. His life in exchange for hers.” He laid the crystal on the table and within shone a photograph of a vast red stone desert, the sky ever so slightly the wrong color. A woman stood holding a baby, a man on each side of her. They all looked so happy. “This is Elena, McKay’s wife. Adrian, their husband. And Benito, McKay’s son.”

Wallace ran a fingertip along the delicate crystal technology before him, foldable alien glass that Corning could only dream of. The image within hurt too much to focus on. The alien device before him was easier. But that meant… “They’re not on Earth,” he realized.

“No,” Sheppard said. “They’ve never been. I doubt they ever will.”

“And if Dr. McKay does this, they’ll never see him again.” Wallace pulled his hand away from the device. He couldn’t look anymore.

Sheppard waited for Wallace to make the right choice. The man had nothing left, no family, no freedom, no fortune, nothing. Jeannie and Rodney had families, futures, people who would miss them. Children.

Wallace used his daughter as an excuse to do horrible things. Sheppard was merely repaying the man’s treachery in kind.

Wallace looked up, eyes red with unshed tears. “I did this,” he said. “If anyone has to die it should be me.”

Sheppard nodded, an acknowledgement. He glanced at the doors and they opened. Two guards stepped inside.

This betrayal of men would soon be ended.

*****

Rodney watched in horror as the medics lifted the body bag on the gurney. A random thought darted through his mind, the human soul supposedly massed at 21 grams so why did the corpses left over by Wraith feedings seem so light compared to their living weights?

“I was showing Wallace the labs,” Sheppard said. “The Wraith got the upper hand. That’s what the report’s going to say.”

That statement pulled Rodney from his morbid musings. He turned to Sheppard. “You…”

“Come on, you’ve got work to do.”

“He does not.” The Wraith called Todd purred, baring teeth in satisfaction. “I’ve completed the reprogramming.”

“That was quick,” Sheppard said. “Well, get it uploaded.”

Rodney looked at Todd, at his laptop, at Sheppard, at the guards, at the open door where medics could be seen rounding the corner toward the elevator. Sheppard turned and left.

Rodney growled and followed. He stopped when he heard the tapping of these damned shoes the SGC made him wear and toed them off, yanking the socks off with them. He snuck after Sheppard, making the effort to stay silent as he followed a few paces behind.

Sheppard turned a corner, glanced back, then sighed in relief. He stopped and leaned against the wall, eyes closed. He’d be able to hear anyone approaching.

“Dammit Sheppard, what did you do?!”

Sheppard jumped, grabbing Rodney and shoving him against the wall. Rodney lost a moment to shock before he remembered his righteous anger. “You heard me,” Rodney growled.

Sheppard let him go and scowled. “If I had you wouldn’t have caught me,” he snapped. “Fucking hobbits. You’re supposed to be mythical!”

“My family married into height and that’s not the point,” Rodney snapped back. “What did you do to get Wallace down here? Was this an execution? Tie up some loose ends to avoid a military trial? Was it revenge?! Oh my god, Tolkien was right, elves really are vindictive assholes!”

“Hey!” Sheppard didn’t know where to start on that one. “What did you want me to do, let you kill yourself?!”

“She’s my sister!”

“By blood or by choice?” Sheppard asked.

Rodney stopped, his mouth open ready to deliver a retort. But… “By…” He wasn’t sure.

“Wallace kidnapped her,” Sheppard said. “Wallace kidnapped you. Wallace held you both against your will. Wallace exposed her when you rightfully refused to go along with his plans. Wallace used experimental nanites built with half-understood coding and organic carbon instead of neutronium. Wallace caused all this. It wasn’t your fault.”

“But…”

“No.” Sheppard held Rodney against the wall again, but this time without force. “You did nothing wrong. You did everything you could.”

Rodney took a deep breath and looked at Sheppard, really looked. The ears were pointed, the hair long and wild. That was normal enough, a common sight at any sci fi convention. But there was more to it than that. The odd light behind Sheppard’s eyes, the eerie smoothness to Sheppard’s skin, the same hard morality that sent the Eldar against Morgoth drove Sheppard to protect those he saw as his own.

In that moment Rodney understood why Tolkien’s elves were feared.

“Okay,” Rodney said.

Sheppard let him go.

“I… I need to get that program uploaded,” Rodney said before padding off. His footsteps made no sound as he jogged back to the lab.

He would have time to freak out later.


	4. Miller's Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some implied child abuse, past and present. Some epic-level self-hatred leading to emotional abuse. General helluva warning. Tags have been updated

Dr. Lam stood to the side while the nurses changed the bedding of their patient. The medical coma kept her brain relatively inactive while the remaining nanites went inert and were cleared out by the spleen and the liver. This patient was expected to survive, the only known survivor of these newly designed carbon-based nanites. There would be tests, long term observation. There would be excuses to bring the patient further into the Stargate program in order to carry out these tests.

Or maybe the data would be considered worthless. The patient’s humanity was in question.

The Charade, as it was called, led to some strange biological anomalies on Atlantis. That was the explanation for the physical changes among the ATA-active assigned to Atlantis. Even General O’Neill showed some changes and he’d only been in the City for a few weeks. 

But it didn’t explain the oddities in Dr. McKay. The fact that Mrs. Miller here showed his same symptoms implied there was a genetic factor.

But that meant this was an Earth phenomenon and that made no sense. It couldn’t be right. Faeries weren’t real. Everyone knew that.

It couldn’t be real.

The nanites must have undone previous hair removal, some inborn disorder of the hair follicles. Congenital localized hypertrichosis, that’s what this was. Abnormal hair growth. Thick curly dark blonde hair that matched her natural hair color. On the tops of her feet and around her calves.

Hobbit feet.

Dr. Lam wouldn’t have believed it were it not for the annoyed marine chasing down Dr. McKay while brandishing a pair of shoes. Dr. McKay had those same hairy hobbit feet and used them to a disturbing efficiency. Dr. Lam suppressed the shudder. People were supposed to make noise. That man could move so quietly there were wagers over whether or not he might be able to sneak up on Teal’c. 

She looked back at the patient, one Jeannie Miller, and wondered if maybe faeries were real.

*****

Rodney sat by Jeannie’s bedside. She was asleep again. Dr. Lam took her off the drugs hours before and Jeannie had drifted in and out of consciousness ever since. The first few times were scary, Jeannie hadn’t remembered anything about Wallace or previous bouts of wakefulness. But Dr. Lam had assured him this was normal.

So Rodney sat and waited as Jeannie stirred again. “Jeannie?” he asked.

“Urrrg… Mer?”

She recognized him this time, that was an improvement. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said, trying to keep her calm. Or maybe keep himself calm.

“Medical comas are weird,” Jeannie said randomly.

Wait, no, not random, it meant she remembered! She could access her own memories again, maybe she could form some this time? “Yeah, you’re not the first to mention it,” he said.

“Did you…?”

This was the fifth time she’d asked this. ‘Did you get the nanites reprogrammed?’ “Yes,” he said.

“So I’m…?”

And this was the second time she’d asked this. ‘So I’m going to be okay?’ “You are absolutely fine,” he said to reassure her. “I mean, aside from a few inert nanites.”

“Thanks, Mer,” Jeannie grumbled, trying to drag herself to a sitting position.

Rodney pushed a button on the bed’s remote. The bed slowly folded, moving her to a sitting position so she wouldn’t hurt herself with the effort. “And aside from Mom and Dad’s precious investment,” he said. “How did you get them to pay for electrolysis?”

“I didn’t,” she said. “Paid for it myself. First year of college.” She paused before beginning to parse that sentence. Her expression turned to one of intense concentration as neurons tried to fire while still shaking off the effects of induced coma.

Rodney took pity on her and pulled the sheets back from her feet. Her fuzzy feet.

Jeannie looked at her feet and blinked. The image took time to make sense.

“For what it’s worth, I’m really sorry about all this,” Rodney said.

Jeannie wiggled her toes. The fuzzy toes in front of her wiggled. Those were her feet. She… looked like a hobbit. This wouldn’t do. “Oh, I’m gonna hold this over your head for forever,” she threatened.

“That’s fair,” Rodney admitted.

“You’re gonna eat a  _ lot _ of vegetarian food and not complain about it.”

“Sure, sure.” Rodney could still hope she’d get tired and go back to sleep then wake up having forgotten this bout of threats. The last bout she’d made him promise to buy her a car. Thankfully that was forgotten, lost to the barbiturate hangover.

“And you’re gonna read Madison three stories instead of her usual two.”

“Right.”

“And you are paying for electrolysis,” she demanded. “One of those single-sitting things that take 20 hours. I’m not padding around like a hobbit for weeks between sessions like I did last time.”

That sort of electrolysis would cost more than the car she made him promise last time. “Let’s not get out of control here,” he said.

“You almost got me killed.” She pouted.

“We’ll talk about it on the way home,” he said, pulling the sheets over her feet and tucking them in. "In the meantime, you’ve been in a medical coma for a few days, I bet you’re tired.”

She gave him a petulant look and refused to admit it. The petulant look stayed until she had fallen back to sleep.

Rodney pressed the remote’s button to lay the bed back down. He breathed a sigh of relief. That one would have been bad. Worse, she would probably remember that one.

*****

Rodney sat heavily on the couch and groaned. His feet hurt. His back hurt. His wallet hurt. His pride hurt. Soon his stomach would hurt.

The Miller household was getting back to some semblance of excited normal. The military escorts were gone. The NID agents were back to hiding unobtrusively as they watched the house. The fridge was cleared out of the empty take-out containers left behind by CSIS agents before the NID took over. Now all that remained were memories. And a few scuffs on the repainted bedroom door.

They’d been car shopping. Jeannie remembered the time she made Rodney promise to buy her a car and now he had to pay for some hybrid thing, a Prius. With all the add-ons. Almost all the add-ons. There was still some argument over remote-start and seat-warmers.

Rodney leaned over and began to untie his shoes.

“What do we want for dinner tonight?” Jeannie called from the kitchen.

“Whatever you feel like,” Kaleb called back. He settled into an easy-chair and picked up the TV remote. Life could finally get back to normal.

Rodney pulled his shoes off then his socks, stuffing the socks into the shoes. He scratched the hairs on his feet, itchy after their day’s confinement. He picked up his shoes and carried them to the entryway, leaving them in a pile by the door. Then he returned to the couch.

He didn’t think there was anything odd about any of this until he saw Madison looking at him with wide eyes. “What?” he asked.

“Uncle Meredith, you have feet like mine,” she said.

The sound of a dropped pan echoed from the kitchen.

“Hmm?” Kaleb hummed, not quite paying attention.

“He does,” Madison said, pointing. Rodney wiggled his toes and then realized what he’d done. As footsteps stomped from the kitchen he realized what Jeannie had done as well.

Jeannie stormed in. “Meredith!” she scolded.

Kaleb sat up, fully aware.

Rodney looked her right in the eye. “You never told him did you,” he realized. In her half-conscious mumblings she once mentioned she’d had electrolysis in college. Her freshman year of college. Years before she met Kaleb. “Even when your own daughter was born like us, you never told him!”

Madison looked at her father and pointed to Rodney’s feet. The smile on her face was one of childish vindication, the knowledge that she wasn’t alone, she was normal just as she was and so she wouldn’t have to pretend anymore. That smile hurt Rodney as he realized what he’d stumbled into. 

Kaleb looked where she pointed and saw…

He turned to Jeannie. She stood shaking her head, like this wasn’t real. Like she didn’t want it to be real. “You knew?” he asked.

“Kaleb…” Jeannie couldn’t think of what to say. She’d shaved her feet before leaving the SGC, she’d have to shave every third day until she could get electrolysis again, she could hide it from him until then. She could be just as normal as he thought she was! He never had to know. He wouldn't have known were it not for... She turned on Rodney, fury rising.

“You led me to believe there was something wrong with our baby!”

Jeannie's fury snapped back, turning to confusion. Why was Kaleb angry about this?

Madison’s smile fell. She crawled into Rodney’s lap. He held her close as she clung to him.

“For five years you allowed me to believe there was something  **wrong** with her and you knew all along she was fine?!” Kaleb shouted.

“When she gets older we can get her electrolysis and she’ll be completely normal,” Jeannie promised. “I told you, it’s just a minor defect, it can be fixed--”

“Your brother has the same ‘defect’,” Kaleb shouted. “This isn’t a birth defect, this is your family! You told me it was a problem! You told me it was a disease!”

“It is!” Jeannie insisted. “Human beings don’t have that!”

Rodney slid his arms around Madison so when he stood up she stayed balanced in his embrace. She clung to him tighter. “Let’s go outside,” he whispered and discretely left the room.

The shouting continued behind him as he let the front door close.

He sat on the porch, letting Madison stay in his lap.

“You don’t have shoes on,” Madison said. “Mommy says I hafta wear shoes all the time ‘cause of my feet.”

“Because they’re furry?” Rodney asked.

“Un huh.”

“Well that’s no fun,” Rodney said. “Your grandparents said the same thing to your mother and me while we were growing up. They weren’t any fun either.”

Madison wiped her nose. Rodney hadn’t realized she’d been crying. But then she was a five year old whose parents were fighting inside. Over her. He could still hear muffled shouting, which meant she could as well.

“Why don’t you take your shoes off?” Rodney suggested.

“Mommy says it’s wrong,” Madison said in a small voice. “Someone might see.”

“How about I keep watch?” Rodney said. “Nobody will see while I’m here.”

Madison nodded and took her shoes off.

Rodney felt his stomach clench as he saw the shaving cuts on the little girl’s feet. He wondered if she struggled like Jeannie used to or if she’d decided to end the pain of enforced waxings by teaching herself to shave like he had. He hid his horror behind a comforting smile as she ran off onto the lawn and immediately stopped, giggling as she wiggled her toes in grass for what might be the very first time.


	5. The Rights of the Child

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I continue to be a horrible person. Abuse tags get a workout. Ambiguous ending is ambiguous. Call it a setup for later events.

Kaleb Miller stormed out of his own house, guilt and anger eating at his heart. Jeannie let him think there was something wrong with his daughter. He’d spent her whole life worried, wondering what else was wrong. Birth defects rarely came alone, one usually meant more, and she let him believe in more. Even now she refused to admit her guilt, refused to see what she’d done was wrong. Maybe she couldn’t see how wrong it was.

Jeannie let him believe this was wrong. She gave him no choice but to believe it. 

Madison lay on the grass of the lawn, bare feet kicking above her. Her giggles came out in a shriek as Rodney picked her up by her ankles and held her upside-down, arms dangling to the ground. 

Madison was thin and gangly, her uncle short and certainly broader than seemed normal. His ears weren’t quite right, either. They weren’t anywhere near as pointed as Colonel Sheppard’s, and God that man had been weird, but now that Kaleb thought to look…

Kaleb shook his head. He wasn’t going to get into this now. Later, maybe, after he figured out what he was going to do. First he had to clear his head.

“Dr. McKay,” Kaleb called.

Rodney looked up and then dropped his niece. He jumped and almost apologized but Madison was too busy giggling. “Again!” she called. He instead put his hands on his hips and gave her a mock pout. She stuck her tongue out at him.

“How’d it go?” Rodney asked, turning from the pile of girl on the lawn. She protested the loss of attention and disentangled herself, sitting up with grass in her hair.

“I… need some time,” he said, looking back at the house. “Jeannie does too.”

“That bad, huh?” Rodney mused. “You know, I have a hotel room in town.”

Kaleb nodded.

Madison got up and rammed into Rodney’s side, an attempt to tackle him to the ground in a hug. It didn’t work and instead he lifted her in his arms as she protested and wiggled. “C’mon, kiddo, we’re going somewhere.”

“Can we get ice cream?” Madison asked.

“I thought you were vegan,” Rodney accused.

“We’ll get ice cream,” Kaleb promised. “Get your shoes on, I’ll meet you at the car.”

Madison squealed and Rodney put her down. She ignored her shoes on the steps and ran to the car.

Rodney took a deep breath and watched. He looked back at the house. The curtains shifted where Jeannie watched. He didn’t need his shoes either, not if it meant going back in there.

*****

Madison sat in front of the television watching fuzzy puppets sing a song about sharing. Her cup of strawberry sorbet was nearly empty, mostly melted, and leaking on the hotel bedspread.

Kaleb stood at the window overlooking the parking lot. His car sat forlorn in the lot, hidden from the road. Not that Jeannie couldn’t find him if she wanted to. He wasn’t sure if he wanted her to or not, or if he wanted her to try.

Rodney had his duffel open on the bed behind Madison. He dug through the contents: clothes, a spare pair of shoes, a laptop, a multitool disguised as a credit card, and a folded sheet of glass the size of a deck of cards. He unfolded it the glass, the crystal as pliant as paper. The glass turned opaque, made it easier to see the images within.

“Wassat?” Madison asked, poking the glass. She left a sticky smudge on the display.

“It’s a picture,” Rodney said.

Madison stuck her tongue out at him. “Whosit?”

Rodney made a big production out of his sigh and eye-roll as he cleaned the smudge off the glass. He sat down on the bed. “That’s your aunt,” he said, pointing to the image of Elena. Then Adrian. “And he’s your uncle.” Then little Benito in Elena’s arms. “And that’s your cousin Ben.”

Kaleb turned from the window, curiosity piqued. “Jeannie never mentioned this,” he said.

“I never told her,” Rodney said. “She’ll never meet them, why should I?”

“What?” Madison demanded. “But I’ll get to meet them, right Uncle Meredith?”

“Probably not,” Rodney said. “They live out near where I work, really far away.”

Kaleb looked at the glass. It took a moment for the fact that this must be alien technology to register in his mind. From there it was easy to realize that must be an alien landscape. The sky wasn’t quite the right color blue, the rocks were all red, it was so easy to dismiss but…

“They’re aliens,” he said.

“They’re more human than a lot of people from Earth,” Rodney said.

Kaleb believed it.

“That’s my wife Elena,” Rodney said as Madison climbed into his lap for a better view and Kaleb came over to see. “Our husband Adrian.”

“Are you sure the kid’s yours?” Kaleb asked dryly.

“He has the McKay hobbit feet,” Rodney countered.

“Feet like mine?” Madison shouted.

Rodney winced. “Indoor voice,” Kaleb scolded.

“Feet like mine?” Madison whispered. Somehow the whisper was louder than the shout. 

“Feet like yours and mine and your mommy’s,” Rodney said. “And your grandpa’s.” He touched the glass of the display and drew his finger in a half swirl on its surface, mentally commanding the display to move to the next file. The image changed to Adrian standing behind Rodney, his arms around the smaller man, his chin on Rodney’s shoulder. Then another image, Elena naked in the river with Benito in her arms, the water swirling around her hips. Another image, Adrian with a riding bird on a long lead, the bird hooded and harnessed, a long training whip in Adrian’s hand. The bird looked like it was imaged mid-prance, one claw held high and curled, its tiny wings mid-flap, its neck arched prettily, its tail straight and long behind it.

Kaleb sat heavily on the bed. Jeannie didn’t know about this. Rodney had a whole life out there and he’d kept it from her. Why? Kaleb glanced at Madison in Rodney’s lap, how she tried to get the glass display to change pictures but only succeeded in leaving sticky handprints that Rodney wiped away with a cloth.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Kaleb asked.

Rodney looked up and Kaleb saw the answer written in his eyes.

“Family means something differently out there,” Rodney said as he changed the image again. Benito sat on a blanket, his furry feet splayed out in front of him, as he held some kind of stuffed animal. It might have been a lizard? Or maybe a dinosaur. Or maybe it was some animal that just lived out there in the Pegasus galaxy, making it no more odd than a teddy bear. “Group marriages are common out there. They have to be, the nuclear family can’t work when the Wraith might descend at any time. You’re here where it’s safe, you don't know what it's like to know in the back of your mind that every day might be the end of it all. Besides, if I just came out and told Jeannie I got married, I have a wife and we have a husband, how do you think she’d react?”

Kaleb nodded. It wasn’t the weirdest thing he’d seen today but it was up there. And people tended to react badly when it was their own families who were… different like that. 

“I’m not even sure how long he’ll be my son,” Rodney admitted. “It’s not like here, parents don’t own their offspring. Children have the right to choose their own families. He’s too young to know how bad I really am at this whole ‘fatherhood’ thing. But once he’s old enough to run on his own he’ll be old enough for his choices to matter. If he decides he’s not my son I don’t have the right to challenge him.”

The idea was alien to Kaleb. A child so young couldn’t possibly understand what kind of choice they were making, right? No child that young understood their choices, any choices. There was a lot that children didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, their brains didn’t stop developing until well after their teenaged years, could any choices they made before then be taken seriously?

“I can see the appeal,” Rodney continued. “Child abuse is rare when the kid can just walk away. When an adult is forced to respect the child’s rights, thoughts, bodily autonomy. Jeannie and I… we didn’t have that. We had to look and act normal or…”

“I see,” Kaleb said. He didn’t see. He didn’t want to see.

“Ben will never have to go through that,” Rodney said. “If it happens, if I do something horrible like that to him, he can walk away. I… never had that right. Nor did Jeannie. Nor does Madison.”

Madison looked up at him, oddly quiet. But then, she was old enough to run on her own. She understood a lot more than anyone else gave her credit for. She looked down at her feet and wiggled her toes. “I don’t want Mommy to shave my feet anymore,” she said. “She cuts me and she pulls my legs real hard and it hurts. Once she pulled so hard my ankle popped and turned all red and big.”

“That’s what I mean,” Rodney said. “If Jeannie says no, if Jeannie decides Madison doesn’t get the right to her own bodily autonomy, what’s to stop Jeannie from hurting her again?”

Kaleb looked at the shaving cuts on her daughter’s feet and legs and felt ill. He remembered that sprained ankle, how Jeannie said Madison had tripped on the stairs. His wife had done that to their little girl. And he’d let her. Because she allowed him to believe there was something wrong with their little girl. “I'll stop her,” he said.

Rodney looked at him, really looked. The determination, the shame, the anger, it was all there to see.

But there wasn’t a single note of epiphany. Kaleb didn’t understand a word he’d said at all.

And Madison would suffer for it. Worse, he had the feeling she understood. Children were good at that. She understood and once Jeannie began to hurt her again she’d realize no one else did. She understood she was a person, she had rights, she had a choice, but nobody else would believe it. Not until it was too late. He seriously considered offering to take Madison right then. But he wasn't sure she'd want to go. Not yet.

Rodney swirled his fingers on the display to reset it and folded the glass closed. “Stay here as long as you need,” he said. “I need to get back home. My ride leaves tomorrow.”

Kaleb nodded.

Madison clung to her uncle. She didn’t want him to leave. She wanted him to stay.

*****

Jeannie sat in her darkened living room. Her empty living room. The paperwork for a Prius sat on the coffee table mocking her, proof that everything had indeed happened that way. Her secret was out and it was all Meredith’s fault. Kaleb was too soft, he didn’t understand how much work it took to hide these differences from the rest of the world. Fear of people and their intolerances had to be taught at a young age, before the child learned to question it. In fact, it was better if the child never learned to question it. After all, look at Meredith. He’d stopped questioning it and now look; he’d volunteered for a one-way mission to another galaxy in an attempt to run away from his problems and now there was an entire galaxy out there poisoned into thinking the works of Tolkien were some sort of religion.

She’d never questioned it and she had a husband and a daughter, a nice house, a brand new car, everything her mother ever wanted for her was right here. The only reason the veneer of normality had cracked was because of Meredith and his ridiculous Pegasus galaxy and its gullible Genii. 

She should never have answered the door. She should have told that pretty military lady to piss off. She should never have agreed to Meredith’s ridiculous terms no matter what he showed her.

Then she’d still be normal. Kaleb wouldn’t have to know.

The door opened. She glanced up at the clock, it was close to 2:30AM. She turned on whomever dared to come crawling back at this hour of the night. “You have some nerve coming in at this hour,” she scolded.

Kaleb stood there, Madison asleep in his arms. “Shut up,” he whispered. 

“Don’t you **dare** tell me to ‘shut up’,” Jeannie snapped, though she whispered it as well.

Madison murmured in her sleep and snuggled in her father’s arms. 

“We will discuss this in the morning,” Kaleb said.

“You bet we will,” Jeannie scoffed. “Where’s Meredith? He caused this mess, he should be here to deal with it.”

“Rodney’s scheduled to gate back tomorrow morning,” Kaleb said. “I agreed with his reasons.”

“What, running away?”

Kaleb looked her in the eye. “His son.” At her disbelieving look he added to it. “His wife. And their husband. Apparently group marriages are common in the Pegasus galaxy.” With that he turned and left her staring in shock at nothing in particular.

He had his little girl to put to bed. His perfectly normal little girl, fuzzy feet or no.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [tumblr](http://nebulousmistress.tumblr.com/) where you can find a hundred little fanfics I never posted here. Check it out, drop a line, maybe dare me to write something for you.


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